Travel Guide: 2 Weeks in Thailand and Cambodia

Intro

If cultural experiences, beautiful scenery, delicious food, and cheap accommodations sound like an amazing combination, Southeast Asia is the next place you need to visit! We had the best time exploring the countries of Thailand and Cambodia during our two week adventure in Southeast Asia. There are so many amazing countries to visit in geographic area that you will need to do research to find out which countries fit the kind of adventure you want. Since we only had two weeks, we landed on visiting Thailand and Cambodia. These countries looked user-friendly for two female backpackers who wanted a variety of different experiences. We had thought about adding Vietnam to our trip, but three countries in two weeks looked too packed (even for us.)

Do you need help planning your trip to Thailand and Cambodia? Keep reading! For an overview of our trip, watch our trip video below.


Before you go

Traveling to Asia required different preparation than I was use to doing before many of our other trips. Before you get on a plane for this adventure, you will want to make sure you have thoroughly studied the rules and regulations for entering and traveling through the specific countries you will be visiting. The State Department’s website offers updated information pages about all the countries in the world and you can find information on most of the following topics.





Country Safety

While some may think this is overkill, I think it’s important to check to make sure there are no travel advisories to the countries you plan to visit. The State Department website will tell you if you should take normal precautions, exercise increased caution, reconsider traveling, or not travel there at all. A few weeks after we visited Cambodia, national elections in the capital city caused civil unrest with protests and violence in the streets. While we didn’t visit the capitol on our trip, I would have been cautious to enter during that time.






Passport & Visas

For traveling in general, I would recommend that your passport be valid for at least six months beyond the date of your entry. This is required for visiting both Thailand and Cambodia. For Thailand, U.S. citizen tourists entering Thailand for fewer than 30 days do not require a visa. For Cambodia, tourists may obtain a Cambodian visa at the airports in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and at all major border crossings. You will need two passport-sized photographs and a blank passport page. Bring $30 in cash to pay for the visa. They accept US dollars.

The State Department website also keeps updated visa information to enter a country. Depending on what year a blog was published, I would still double check with an official source in case anything as changed.





Vaccines & Medication

The CDC’s website gives a detailed description of the recommended vaccinations you need when visiting any country. Before I visited India in college, I got the Hepatitis A, Polio, and Tdap vaccines and took pills to prevent Typhoid. Because I had already received those and was up-to-date on all of my other vaccines, I did not do anything extra for this trip.

Thailand and Cambodia have strict laws on what prescription drugs you can bring into the country – especially narcotic and psychotropics. If you have a prescription from the doctor, I would make sure that drug is allowed in the country and to bring the original prescription with you. I would bring any medicine in its original container, even simple things like ibuprofen. We didn’t have any problems with the simple things we brought like Advil and Pepto Bismol.





Travel Insurance

Real Talk: If you can’t tell, I like to stay on the safe side. I also like to save money and do things cheaply. Because of this, determining whether we should go travel insurance on an adventure is always hard for me.

Because of the elevated risk of getting sick by eating or drinking something, we decided to get travel insurance for this trip. We went with World Nomads. We didn’t need it (thank goodness), but we had it just in case.





Reservations

While trains are an option, we decided to use flights to get around the country since we were on a tight schedule and the plane tickets were cheap ($40 for a flight y’all! How amazing is that?!). We used Kayak to search for the cheapest flight between cities. We used Booking to book a majority of our accommodations and used Viator to book two of our tours.






Packing

With the exception of the beaches, I would go with “modest is hottest” when packing for this trip. With all the temples you will be entering, you will need clothes that cover your knees and shoulders. Check out our packing list for more detailed information.





Phone

We used the AT&T International Day pass for $10 a day to have data available on one of our phones if we needed it. We really only used this in Bangkok for the GrabTaxi app. We had friends that bought a cheap smartphone before they left and would buy sim cards when they would arrive in a country. Do whatever works best for you and your budget.






Money

We paid for 90% of things with cash on this trip. While we were able to pay for our accommodations with a credit card when we were making our reservations, a majority of day to day expenses required cash: taxis/transportation, food, massages, souvenirs. I am not saying that you’ll never be able to use your credit card, but I would be prepared to pay with cash. We brought cash and exchanged it at currency exchange booth our first day walking around Bangkok. In Cambodia, US dollars are universally accepted.


Real Talk: When making reservations for our elephant sanctuary experience, they inform you that you can pay with a credit card after the tour. When we went to pay, their credit card machines were down and we had to use the rest of our cash to pay for the tour. We were able to get more at an ATM which was no problem, but I hate paying the extra ATM fees.

All that to say, bring your credit card, debit card, and cash to exchange at a non-airport currency exchange booth for better exchange rates.



Our 2 Week Itinerary through Thailand and Cambodia

Note: It took us almost two full days to arrive in Thailand with the flight connections and time change. We arrived in Bangkok at 11:00pm and got a ride to our hostel. My friend who lives in Bangkok suggested that we download GrabTaxi (I think they are partially owned by Uber) and that worked well for us to get transportation our entire time in Bangkok. The driver would know exactly where we wanted to go (no communication barrier) and we would know what we were going to have to pay.

We stayed at Bangkok Bed and Bike hostel during our time in Bangkok.




Day 1: Explore Bangkok

  • Go to The Grand Palace

    • See Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) inside


Note: We were able to wear our athletic tights in all the other temples in Thailand and Cambodia with the exception of this one. They would not let us in with just tights and we had to go outside and buy a $5 skirt. Be warned.

  • Go to Wat Pho Complex (Temple of the Reclining Buddha)

  • Eat lunch at The Sixth 6th

  • Ferry across from Tha Tien Pier to Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan (Temple of the Dawn)

  • Option: Ferry Back Across and go to Wat Suthat (The Giant Swing)

  • Dinner in Chinatown at a street vendor

    • We had dinner with our friends who live in Bangkok this night. They showed us around different food carts and bought us dessert! If the line is long at a food cart, you know it’s good.

  • Get a massage at Center Point Massage & Spa


Note: We scheduled a massage almost every day we could on this trip because they were so cheap (“an hour for under $10” cheap). I would highly recommend getting as many as you can. I will always add what place we got our massage if I have it, but often times we would just pick a place that looked nice close to where we were having dinner.



Day 2: Market Day

  • Floating Market Tour of Damnoen Saduak (6 hours)

Real Talk: If you want to visit a more traditional floating market in Bangkok, I would not recommend Damnoen Saduak. After watching a TV special with Chrissy Teigan going to a floating market and eating boat noodles, I was really excited about visiting a floating market. While this is technically a floating market, it is geared toward tourists and lacks the authenticity of a traditional floating market. On the tour we took, we also had to pay extra money for the boat ride through the market canals which seemed like it should have been included in the price of the tour. The tour itself wasn’t terrible and some people really enjoy this market – it just wasn’t our style.

  • Shop around at Chatuchak Market

    • This is a weekend market -- only open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. If you’re looking for souvenirs, street food, and massages all in one place, you won’t be disappointed. I fell asleep during my foot massage here because it was so relaxing (and I was exhausted.)

  • Dinner at Thip Samai

    • This is one of the most popular places for pad thai in Bangkok. We got there 15 minutes before it opened and there were already 20 people there. While the pad thai was good, I don’t think it would have been worth an hour or two hour wait.

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Day 3: Day trip to the temples of Ayutthaya

  • Take a minivan from Morchit Terminal to Ayutthaya Win Terminal

    • This option is 70 baht a person and it takes an hour and half to get there. If you want to feel like a local, this is a good option for you.

  • Arrive in Ayutthaya and hire a tuk-tuk for the day.

    • Haggle for your tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk manager first offered a tour for 400 baht/per person/per hour. When I said we would look around for a better price, he changed it to 200 baht/per person/per hour.

  • We visited the following temples:

    • Wat Yai Chai Mang Khon

    • Wat Phanan Choeng

    • Wat Si Sanphet

    • Wat Chaiwatthanaram

    • Wat Phra Ram

    • Wat Mahathat

Note: There are so many temples in this little city. If you have specific temples you would like to visit, make sure you have the names written down and show it to your driver. We received a free map and I circled the ones we wanted to see. If you don’t care which ones you visit, the driver will take you to the most popular ones. The driver will park his tuk-tuk and wait for you while you visit each temple.

  • Lunch at Sonmtum Sukunya (across from Wat Mahathat)

    • This was a cute cafe with the sweetest owner. Get the mango and sticky rice! It was the best I had on our whole trip.

  • Take a minivan back to Morchit Terminal from Ayutthaya Win Terminal

  • Flight to Chiang Mai

  • Stay at Moto Velo Cabin

Day 4: Elephant Sanctuary

  • Visit Patara Elephant Farm and become an Elephant owner for the day

    • We had a great experience at Patara and would recommend it to anyone visiting the area. We felt taken care of the entire time and learned a lot about the health and care of elephants. The lunch was also very good and they take pictures of you the entire day that are free to download.

    • As I said before, their credit card machine was down and we had to use cash to pay.

Note: Before you visit any place in Thailand having to do with animals, please do research and make sure they are treating animals ethically. We didn’t go to a tiger sanctuary for this reason (even though I really wanted to hold a baby tiger.)

  • Option: Visit the temples of Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Chiang Man, and Wat Phan Tao inside the old city.

  • Massage at CNX Thai Massage

  • Dinner at Flight 52

    • This is a good pizza place if you’re wanting a break from Thai food.



Day 5: Thai Cooking Class

  • Participate in Zabb E Lee Thai Cooking School

    • I cannot say enough good things about this cooking class. From our host, to the market tour, and the amount of food we were able to cook and eat, it was an amazing experience from start to finish. We were even given a cookbook at the end of the class. If you’re going to Chiang Mai, take this class!

  • Flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia

    • Be ready to stand in line for at least 30 minutes to get your visa approved.

  • Stay at Golden Temple Villa


Real Talk: Golden Temple Villa was the best hotel experience I have ever had. Here are the list of the many positive things about this hotel:

  • $55 per night.

  • Airport pick-up

  • Welcome drinks

  • Beautiful facilities- rooms, pool, lobby, dining room

  • Free daily breakfast

  • One free dinner

  • One free hour massage

  • Assistance in booking $20 Angkor complex tuk-tuk tour and provide free sack lunch

  • Cheap room service drinks

  • Bedtime snacks

  • Free t-shirt

  • Airport drop-off

You get the point. Stay here.


Day 6: Explore Siem Reap

Note: We had an extra day on our itinerary and decided to use it to explore the area around Siem Reap. While this wasn’t the most exciting day of our trip, it did feel like it was a very authentic view of Cambodia and how the locals live outside of the city. Some people use two days to view the temples, but we felt like one day was enough.

  • Visit Kompong Phluk village and Tonle Sap Lake

    • After getting off the van, this tour took us on a small boat that went along the lake, passing stilted houses and schools, floating markets, pagodas, and fishing boats. We were there during dry season, but during wet season, you can take a canoe ride through the flooded forest. We also stopped at a beautiful, open-air restaurant for lunch.

  • Take the ATV Sunset Ride

    • This evening adventure took us through the countryside of Siem Reap. It was cloudy, so we didn’t get any amazing sunset pictures, but it was another chance to view Cambodia outside of a tour bus. Be prepared to get muddy.

  • Take a tuk-tuk to dinner at Marum

    • This one of my favorite dinner spots of our whole trip! The food was great and I also loved that this restaurant has a mission to work with and train children who were previously living on the street.

Day 7: Tomb raiding at Angkor Wat

Note: Angkor Wat is only one temple in the overall Angkor complex. Similar to Ayutthaya, there are many temples to see, so you will want to have a list if there are specific ones you want visit to show your driver. Because of the temperature and crowds, many people recommend starting early by seeing the sunrise at Angkor Wat. If sunrise is at 5am, you will want to leave your hotel around 4:30am. Your tuk-tuk driver will take you to the ticket office to get a ticket that will work for the entire complex. The ticket office was already pretty busy when we got there around 4:45am. You can also get your ticket the evening before after 5:00 pm for the next day.

We visited the following temples in the small loop:

  • Sunrise at Angkor Wat

  • Angkor Thom complex

    • South Gate

    • Bayon

    • Phimeanakas

    • Baphuon

    • Elephant Terrace

    • Victory Gate

  • Ta Prohm

    • This is the famous temple from “Tomb Raider” and it was the most crowded temple after Angkor Wat.

  • Srah Srang

  • Banteay Kdei

Real Talk: We were pretty tired and “templed-out” by 1pm. We also ate our lunch by 10am and were hungry again for a second lunch, so we went back to the hotel, ate at a restaurant close to our hotel, and took a nap before our free dinner and massage at the hotel.

  • Option: Siem Reap is known for having very exciting and eventful night market if you have any energy left after your day exploring temples.

Day 8: Travel Day to Phuket

Real Talk: Nook Dee Boutique has beautiful facilities and a perfect rooftop that overlooks the ocean. Atheistically speaking, this is a gorgeous hotel and we did enjoy our time there. One of the cons to this hotel is that it is on top of a large hill and you have to take a tuk-tuk or taxi to go down to the hill for any restaurants or shopping. (They have scheduled shuttles that will take you to the beach.) Another con is that the dinner we ate there wasn’t very good and the morning breakfast is very expensive.



Day 9: Day trip to Railey Beach

  • Catch the ferry from Phuket to Railey Beach

Real Talk: This was the most frustrating moments of our trip. I am only telling you this story to hopefully save you from the heartache we experienced: Because of the timing of ferries, we only had about 5 hours to spend at Railey Beach. When we got off the ferry, we thought we were at Railey Beach, so we left the dock area and starting walking around. Not recognizing any of the surroundings, we went back to the dock and they said that were at Krabi beach and that the boat we were suppose to get on to Railey Beach had already left. Not knowing what to do, we asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us to where we could buy tickets for the boats. He drove us to a ticket agency about 15 minutes away. We had to wait for enough people to buy tickets for the truck to be full and then the truck drove us BACK to the dock where we started all of this mess. There was also a ticket booth right there that the tuk-tuk driver failed to mentioned we could have bought tickets from…. We finally got on a boat and got to Railey Beach, but we had even less time to spend there. All that to say -- ask questions and know your surroundings.

  • Relax on the beach

  • Walk to Ao Phra Nang Beach

  • Have lunch and get a drink at Tew Lay Bar Railay

    • It wasn’t the best food, but the views were breathtaking!

  • Ferry back to Phuket and transfer back to the hotel

  • Dinner at Odysseus

    • This cute little Greek restaurant hit the spot!

  • Find some Thai rolled ice cream

    • Multiple “rolled ice cream” places have opened up in our hometown and we had no idea it was from Thailand. The authentic Thai-version was better than any we had tried at home.


Day 10: Phi Phi Islands Snorkeling

  • Wake up early to do the Phi Phi Island Sunrise Snorkeling Tour

    • One reason to do an early tour is because some of the more popular snorkeling spots can get very busy as the day progresses. Maya Bay, one of the most popular places to snorkel, was closed when we went due to overuse and environmental damage. We still had a great time snorkeling in the other areas and would recommend it for both the snorkeling and the beautiful views of the Phi Phi Islands. If you prone to motion sickness, bring some medicine. We had quite a few people getting sick on our boat.

  • Dinner at Two Chefs

    • This is another good option if you’re longing for some comfort food.


Day 11: Sea kayaking

  • Spend the whole day and evening doing the John Gray’s Sea Canoe tour.

    • This was probably one of the top 5 adventure experiences we will ever have. We chose to do the “Hong by Starlight” tour where we spent the day exploring caves and hongs and the evening building a Loi Kratong while watching the sunset. If you’re not a strong paddler, no worries! You have someone on your canoe paddling for you. If you want an experience of a lifetime, you can’t miss this one during your time in Phuket!

Day 12: Surfing

  • Surf lessons on Kata Beach

    • This was a fun way to end our last full day in Thailand. I can’t say that we conquered the waves, but we had a great time trying.

  • Option: We took a tuk-tuk up to visit the Big Buddha on the hilltop. This was a beautiful view of the city and the perfect way to say goodbye to Thailand.

  • Take taxi to Phuket Airport for flight to Bangkok

  • Stay at Eat-Ting Cafe and Hostel close to airport

Real Talk: Our flight was so early the next morning, I wish we had just spent a little more money to stay at a hotel at the airport.


Day 13: Take your flight home!


That’s it!

Thailand and Cambodia were places filled with unique scenery and experiences. Definitely add these two countries to your bucket list for a budget friendly trip you’ll never forget!

Leave any comments or questions below.




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Travel GuideLindsay JudyItinerary, Thailand, Cambodia, AsiaComment